Site selection in Germany - Start of the evaluation of the site selection law - 15561

Conference · Wed Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2015

OSTI ID:22824433

Thomauske, Bruno ^[1]; Charlier, Frank ^[2]

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1. RWTH Aachen University, NET (Germany)
2. international nuclear safety engineering GmbH, Jesuitenstrasse 4, D-52062 Aachen (Germany)

Since 2011 Germany is pursuing a phase out strategy concerning the use of nuclear power for electricity production. This decision was strongly influenced by the Fukushima event. In 2013 the federal government announced that they also had achieved an agreement with the Federal States in Germany on a law to restart the site selection for a repository for spent fuel and high active heat producing waste from scratch. The consequence of this law is a delay of at least two decades to start operation of a final disposal site and additional costs of at least EUR 2.7 billion. The new law was passed in July 2013. At first a 34-member commission had been installed in April 2014 to evaluate the Site Selection Law and to develop basic principles for site selection, including safety requirements and selection criteria for rock formations. The commission includes representatives from the parliament, academia, civil society organizations, industry, the environmental organizations and trade unions and should forward its recommendations after a delay in starting the evaluation process now in 2016. The first author of this paper is member of the evaluation commission. The present law has to be reviewed within this time span. The site selection then might start after the next federal election in 2017 probably based on a new site selection law. This new site selection law will take into account or even follow the recommendations of the evaluation group. A new repository site should be according to the present law determined till 2031 and for this site the more detailed site investigation will take place followed by a detailed safety analysis, before the erection of the repository can start. Based on the present procedural steps it seems to be rather unlikely to determine a repository site till 2031. As shown in this publication, there will be a delay of at least 20 years compared to the schedule given in the site selection law until a repository site can be determined. (authors)

• Research Organization: WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
• OSTI ID: 22824433
• Report Number(s): INIS-US--19-WM-15561
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE WASTES FROM NUCLEAR FACILITIES
FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
NUCLEAR POWER
ROCKS
SAFETY ANALYSIS
SCHEDULES
SITE SELECTION
SPENT FUELS
WASTES